An Article About Poetry

First and foremost, the link for you to read is here.

I am writing this just after reading through this article and it was a very dense article, so naturally I am having issues organizing my thoughts. In short, this is about a group of people who are working on an English translation of an anthology of Russian anti-war poems. Given the persecution the Russian people are liable to recieve from their government for sharing antiwar sentiments, these poems are being translated to English in order to be preserved and further shared.

The article is focused on interviews with translators in the project about the nature of their work and the complexities of translating from Russian to English. They discuss various techniques used in the poetry to emphasize the senslessness and violence of the war in Ukraine as well as the ridiculousness of the Russian state's propaganda.

Here is a poem from the article written by Yulia Fridman and translated by Maria Bloshteyn:

When we had liberated Ukraine from the Nazis,
Poland from Martians, Finland from dog-headed men,
the Earth sprouted fragrant cocaine-smelling blossoms,
and our tankmen got high on their magical scent.

Lithuania became a hotbed for galactic snails
from Epsilon of Andromeda, that cold crimson star;
they hid among salad greens and other plants,
we bombed it flat – no choice but go that far.

Read more about it here.

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